


Happenstance

by Pennedwing



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-04-10 10:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4387817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennedwing/pseuds/Pennedwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Day 1 Zutara Week 2015: Happenstance<br/>AU Zuko plays football and Katara is an artist; both struggle to do what they love and help each other heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happenstance

**For Zutara Week 2015-Day 1**

**Happenstance (noun): coincidental/a coincidence**

* * *

 

Some might say it’s happenstance that this girl and this boy were ever to meet in the first place.

They might say it was completely by chance that a young girl, only fourteen, with shy blue eyes and an imagination of a woman who’s seen the whole world, walked into the art room one day. 

A complete coincidence that a gangly sixteen-year old boy tried out for the football team and made varsity, “an arm like a rocket” his coach would say, “and a fire in his heart to match.” 

Who could guess that the girl could paint a portrait to bring the dead back to life in the eyes of their loved ones. That she would wield a paintbrush like a sword, but with it create entire worlds? 

Who could guess that the boy could lead his team to a victory the likes of which it had never seen: A championship game; a roaring crowd; a dark night with stars shining like stadium lights and stadium lights bearing down like the sun.

But no one could predict her art would become her enemy. What would start as an aching wrist would enflame her arm with agony and burn her inspiration to a crisp. Fruitless days would turn into weeks, would turn into months of staring at a blank canvas with fear and apprehension. Her mind, once bursting with color, would go black. An ailment that long after was healed, was never fully recovered. 

No one could predict his passion would become his downfall. One wrong move, a simple misstep in the dance would leave him swarming in pain and doubt and people, so many people crowded around him, before the paramedics could arrive. A long drive down a wailing road. Frenzied attempts to fix whatever went wrong. A slim-to-none chance of recovery would leave him isolated in his own head, even if he was in a room full of people. 

Some might say it was an innocent accident, a “Sorry, my mistake”, that sent him into an almost-empty art room one late afternoon. Who could’ve guess she would let him stay. No one could’ve guessed they would start talking, stilted and awkward at first, and then gradually—like a few drops of rain that multiply into a rainstorm—conversation would bloom and flow like that between familiar friends. 

Those who believe in it would be quick to claim that luck kept sending him to that art room, and that luck let him stay there. They would claim luck brought the spark of promise back into the bleak space behind her eyelids when he walked through the door. They would claim luck soothed the pain in his legs and the ache in his heart that had been there since that fall night, so long ago.

They might say the smile on her face when she finished her first piece without any pain, and without breaking down, had nothing to do with the boy patiently watching her from behind. 

They might say the smile on his face the long-awaited day he stepped onto the field— _finally_ —had nothing to do with the girl sitting on the bleachers in a paint-splattered frock.

But then again, they who say these things know not of Destiny.


End file.
